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Thought about putting this in general but I think it's better left a homebrew discussion.
Id love a class archetype that switches out a witches familiar for an animal companion. What do y'all think that would entail as far as what the witch chassis has to give up? Would you still pick from the printed patrons or would a singular bespoke patron have to be made balanced around having an animal companion? Would there be a reduction in familiar abilities? Would you have to bump the witch down two slots?
I'm no expert in design so I wanted to ask the class what they thought such a class archetype would look like.
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Have you tried playing with the Scions of Domora archetype and the Spirit Guide familiar that can make Strikes and generally behaves more like an Animal Companion?
Is that something that could be tweaked to make work in a way that is satisfying, or is it something that falls way short of your design goals?
Have you tried playing with the Scions of Domora archetype and the Spirit Guide familiar that can make Strikes and generally behaves more like an Animal Companion?
Is that something that could be tweaked to make work in a way that is satisfying, or is it something that falls way short of your design goals?
Definitely cool, looking for something beefier, though
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My reasoning would be as follows:
I would thus say that by itself, swapping a super-familiar out for a regular animal companion would be a downgrade, and therefore safe. I would go as far as to say that there is room to give this prospective Witch class archetype the unique ability to imbue their animal companion with familiar abilities, specifically the bonus familiar abilities granted by their familiar feature. For the dedication feat, you could simply grant the animal companion 2 additional familiar abilities, with the expectation that the archetype's feats would let you advance your animal companion as with other companion classes.
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NGL I would really like a companion-focused class archetype for witches. It doesn't even need to be that deep. Take all the staple feats from companion archetypes and make it so your companion replaces your familiar for witch features and it would be more than enough.
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Yea, the necessity to keep investing in the companion with 4 additional feats like any AC might balance it against other witches
I think the complexity/balance issue you are going to need to resolve before getting too into the reeds of feats and features about is figuring out if the witch is going to lose all connection to their patron if their companion dies and if they are going to have to wait a week to get their companion back. A companion that can be brought back overnight shoots up in value quite a bit compared to the typical animal companion, but a witch that loses their ability to reprepare spells while their companion s out is hurting a lot more than other companion classes so the balance isn’t going to be as clean as a direct comparison.
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Given that the Witch's Undying familiar ability reduces the downtime on a familiar's death to their next daily preparations from a week, I feel that would neatly solve that particular issue already on a prospective animal companion.
Given that the Witch's Undying familiar ability reduces the downtime on a familiar's death to their next daily preparations from a week, I feel that would neatly solve that particular issue already on a prospective animal companion.
That would make this the most powerful animal companion by a mile. It would really change the way a character with an animal companion plays because you don’t have to worry about protecting it at all. I am not saying it’s too extreme but it wouldn’t be letting a witch have an animal companion. It would be giving the witch the best animal companion and that feels like a bit of a balance concern.
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I never really agreed with the week downtime requirement of losing ACs and familiars. Build investments of multiple feats that need replacing shouldn't happen over what may be multiple sessions. I've never found that acceptable as a GM, so getting them back the next day has been my standard (the one or two times I've actually had familiars or ACs at my table).
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Yeah, the 1/week cooldown is honestly dumb. For campaigns with time pressure that's effectively a free retraining pass from your GM unless they want you to switch characters. In the case of familiars it even makes less sense since they even aren't real animals to begin with, so why don't they come back after a 10 minute refocus or something like that?
I have no issue with having a general house rule that companions can resurrect after 24 hours. At our tables we tend to just run companions with the death and dying rules and that usually prevents instant companion death (although I have seen them taken out by massive damage).
However, I think just making an archetype that gives the witch a companion that comes back in 24 hours would be unfair to other companion classes and is something to consider as part of the archetype’s balance.
Fair enough
That would make this the most powerful animal companion by a mile. It would really change the way a character with an animal companion plays because you don’t have to worry about protecting it at all. I am not saying it’s too extreme but it wouldn’t be letting a witch have an animal companion. It would be giving the witch the best animal companion and that feels like a bit of a balance concern.
The Witch currently gets the best familiar by a mile, so I'm still not seeing what the issue is. Under this class archetype, the Witch would presumably need to sink in additional feats to advance their animal companion just like anyone else, so even with Undying, the change would be power-neutral.
I also think the line about the Witch not needing to protect their animal companion makes little sense: if we're still assuming that they're tied to the unique abilities that each Witch patron gives, then a Witch will very much want to keep their companion alive for those, much like how a Witch right now doesn't want their familiar to die just after daily preparations if they want to put their familiar ability to use. We should all have enough experience with Witches to know that familiars aren't disposable even when they come back the next day, and the same can be said for animal companions.